SERVANT LEADERSHIP - The Blue Letter Bible Institute

Servant Leadership – Lesson 31 12
Keep a Pure Heart by Chuck Smith
And so he said, “I have taught you publicly, and I have taught you in your homes, from house to
house.” Paul was going around, giving individual instruction and exhortation to a brother.
What did Paul teach them? He said, “I have taught you that you should turn to God, and that you
should believe in the Lord Jesus Christ” (cf. Acts 20:20-21).
And then he went on to say that he did not count his own life dear to himself (Acts 20:24). Now
actually, to really serve the Lord, you cannot count your life dear to yourself. You have to be
willing to make sacrifices of your own time, of your own resources, of yourself, and maybe even
of living standards.
You know, when Satan was before God, he accused Job of serving God for the material benefits.
He said, “Look at the way You have blessed him. Anybody would serve You if they were blessed
like that. Do not tell me Job is such a big guy and doing so good. You have prospered him and
blessed him. It is no wonder he is serving You” (cf. Job 1:10). And he was accusing Job of
serving the Lord for the monetary gain, or for the material gain.
Now many times people today are trying to make the same innuendoes that we are serving the
Lord for material gain, that we might live in a nice home, or that we might drive a nice car. And
Satan’s accusations are still prevalent, attributing false motivations towards the ministry.
I thank God for the first seventeen years of my ministry. No one can make false accusations
against me saying that I ministered for the material gains because for seventeen years, we
sacrificed and did without. My wife and I were just relating to each other this week how glorious
it is the way God has blessed us. Now we are so thankful. We were remembering the day when
buying a can of Crisco was a major problem in our budget. We would have to figure out what we
could do without in order to buy a can of Crisco. It was a major disaster in our grocery budget. It
would just wipe us out.
Our first pastorate was in Prescott, where we got fifteen dollars a week. When we took our
second pastorate in Tucson, we got a raise in salary. We were getting twenty dollars a week. And
they gave us a parsonage, which was one big room behind the church. We put a curtain up to
separate our bedroom from the living room because people were always coming into the
parsonage. It was right there at church. They would say, “We came to church early tonight, so we
thought we would come back and say, ‘Hi.’” We were often trying to get ready and we would
have to brush our teeth. Our kitchen sink was actually a dishpan. And we had a facet coming
through a hole in the wall with no hot water, just the cold water. We had to heat our hot water on
the big, old-fashioned stove with the high top oven and the burners. We wanted to brush our your
teeth before church, but people would come in. We would have to go over and get the glass full
of water, take the toothbrush, and go outside. We had to spit the water out in the yard because we
did not have any drain or anything back there.
We had to use the restrooms in the church, which were up at the front end of the church. And on
the cold winter nights, that was tough. We had to go to a neighbor’s house to get a bath. And we
lived back there just as happy as if we had good sense because we were serving the Lord and that
was our desire, that was our life. We wanted to serve the Lord more than anything else. If serving
the Lord meant living behind the church in that big room and getting twenty dollars a week—
praise the Lord! We were happy to be serving the Lord.
And thus, for seventeen years we lived in great sacrifice of many things because we were serving
the Lord. I worked, laboring with my own hands to provide for the needs of the family. I did all